


Echoes in the Shadows

by ShitfishGhouligan



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Disturbing Themes, Horror, M/M, Pining, Suspense, Swearing, This Is Sad, Unreliable Narrator, mentions of gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 16:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15733638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitfishGhouligan/pseuds/ShitfishGhouligan
Summary: Terror seized him when his leg caught on the root of a bush, one that he hadn’t seen, that he couldn’t have seen when he’d taken off his contacts that morning and had stupidly left his glasses in his car.Fuck.Why had he been late? Why did he take the fucking dare?“You’re afraid…”Ryan’s heart nearly leapt up his throat when something brushed against the nape of his neck. The touch had been soft—so soft that he might have missed it had his senses not been in overdrive.“Don’t be.”





	Echoes in the Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Frankly, this is a hard T.
> 
> I wrote this up in word sprint with a couple of pals on the shyan discord. It's thanks to them I brought this atrocity into this world because it's been a while since I'd written spoopy stuff.

When Ryan Bergara had first heard the stories, he’d found them _hysterical_. They were the kind of tales that friend of friends shared, indulged in around a campfire to scare a dude straight silly. It was how things went, how friendships formed and how they inevitably ended.

So, when they first mentioned the story of a creature that lurked in the shadows, stealing away those that had the misfortune of wandering too far into the forest, Ryan had grinned and called _bullshit_. Why would he believe it? Sure, his family was devoutly religious in the way most parents could be, but he himself didn’t subscribe to the practice. What reason did he have to be afraid of some spooky specter that had probably been made up to keep the kids from wandering too far out into the trees?

Fast forward to this moment, the one where the skies have darkened with the night, stars glimmering like gems in a sea of black, and well. Now, however, Ryan wasn’t so sure that it was all made up.

But then again, even the most skeptical would be scared shitless of walking in a forest in the dead of night. It takes a lot of balls to do this, and though Ryan was notorious for being scared easily, even when all the stories were _bullshit_ , he wasn’t above a little healthy amount of fear. Especially when it was in this precise moment, in the middle of some forest in California, that he remembered that tale. He hadn’t thought of that stupid story in _years_ , not since his friend Rebecca had disappeared into the night without a trace a few shorts months after graduating from high school.

 _Years since you’d lost it all and had to mosey on back to California,_ a thought supplied, one Ryan didn’t want to have, especially not when he was wandering in the dark, had no fucking clue where he was going. If the fork he’d turned on was the way back or if he’d ended up delving deeper into the wooded area than was planned.

But the thoughts didn’t stop. They refused to fuck off, to leave him alone.

Every single nightmare he’d had after her disappearance filtered through his brain, of every night, staring listlessly at his dark ceiling, wondering where’d she’d gone—if she’d been kidnapped, _taken_ , in her bed in much the same way he was laying in his. His blood boiled in his veins, pumped adrenaline through the complicated network of cells in his body, in the marrow of his bones, and Ryan had wanted to scream, to push aside those terrible thoughts of _what ifs,_ his own imagination worse than anything a coroner’s report might say. God, how he’d prayed that she’d be found—if only to make the nightmares stop, to make it all go away.

 _And then, and_ then—Ryan didn’t want to think about what had happened after that. It still stung. And now, after a fucking near decade without thinking of her, without thinking of the what happened long after her disappearance, of that stupid story, it was all coming back like an overflow.

 _Welcome back, Ryan_ , he thought with equal parts derision and disgust.

“ _Ryan…_ ”

A scream tore from his mouth, one that didn’t sound at all like it was coming from his own _throat_ , and he stormed through the forest. His legs were beating against the ground, an ache settling deep in the pit of his belly when the contents of his stomach churned, threatening to shoot up his throat. He had eaten less than an hour before he’d been sent off on this foolhardy endeavor, and now, he was paying for it in fucking spades.

God, what had possessed him to fucking agree to this?

“… _Bergara.”_

The hairs raised in the back of his neck, but he didn’t stop, didn’t dare look back to see what was chasing him in the dense thicket of trees. It would be stupid. Like all the fucking horror movie he’d sat through with his buddies in the comfort of his beat-up couch.

Laughter broke out behind him, like the low grind of a running vehicle and a voracious predator waiting for its prey to misstep, and Ryan pushed harder, feet slapping against the earth. Branches cut into his palms, but he hardly registered the sting, could hardly think of anything else except that strange laughter—

That was growing louder and louder the further he ran.

Terror seized him when his leg caught on the root of a bush, one that he hadn’t seen, that he couldn’t have seen when he’d taken off his contacts that morning and had stupidly left his glasses in his car.

 _Fuck_. Why had he been late? Why did he take the fucking dare?

“ _You’re afraid…”_

Ryan’s heart nearly leapt up his throat when something brushed against the nape of his neck. The touch had been soft—so soft that he might have missed it had his senses not been in overdrive.

“ _Don’t be._ ”

Like fuck he wasn’t going to be afraid. He was running in the middle of nowhere. He had no sense of where he was going, if he’d taken the correct turn towards the path his buddies had pointed him to when he’d set off on this foolhardy endeavor.

But he hadn’t seen the path—not since he’d first walked off it. He’d been wandering over the forest floor for some time now, and his situation was starting to look rather grim for it. Then again, there wasn’t much _of_ a path to walk on, the beaten path had ended as abruptly as it started, so where else was he supposed to go?

_I dare you to walk out into the forest, as far as the path takes you, and to stay there for at least three hours._

He was going to kill his friend if he made it out of this alive.

“ _Been a long time since someone’s been stupid enough to come this far.”_

If he hadn’t been as terrified as he was, he would have pointed out that he wasn’t _stupid._

Especially when a fucking monster-thing- _whatever_ that had chased him for what felt like _miles_ through the fucking unknown. He may have been dumb enough to take the stupid dare, but let it be said that Ryan wasn’t _that_ dumb.

His legs were burning something fierce after what felt like an eternity of running through bushes, fighting with _said_ bushes, and recollecting his balance when a root or two tried to upend him into the ground. It was the most intense workout he’d ever had in his life—

_One that might even cost you your life if you don’t get off your fucking ass and find the stupid road._

“ _You won’t find what you’re looking for, you know_.”

Ryan ignored the voice, pushing past his own limits, past his breaking point when his legs began to cramp, a stitch forming on his side. He was panting, his throat burning from breathing so hard.

The monster had to be wrong. It simply had to be. There was a road and as much as this forest terrified him, there was an end to this. This strip of land was surrounded by suburban homes that wanted to escape the daily bustle of the city life. He would get to a road eventually.

“ _No one ever does—”_

His stomach twisted in response at its low growl, at the way that loud grinding shifted—became less animal and almost _human_.

A tremor wracked through at the thought, at the notion that the thing wasn’t just a _thing_ but could change shape. A faceless monster was one thing—with its sharp claws and vicious teeth, like the maw of a beast that devoured flesh and gorged itself with blood. But a monster that didn’t _look_ like one? A creature that could pretend to be human?

Ryan swiveled his head, unable to stand the pool of terror in his belly, to resist the impulse begging that he _look, oh fuck, just take a look_ —

Pain suddenly exploded over his senses when he bashed into something hard.

A loud crunch echoed in the silent forest, and Ryan was screaming, forgetting entirely about the monster hot on his heels because there was something bitter and hot in his mouth, a strange tingle on the surface of his bottom of his lip that hadn’t been there before.

Scrambling, Ryan tried to catch himself, to make sense of the bright spots now dancing along his vision because _fuck—_

His arm caught on something soft and hard. It was smooth, unlike any fucking tree he’d ever touched or seen in his life. His fingers followed along that surface, warmth seeping through his fingers, almost like human _skin._ Then, the thing in front of him touched him back, slipped what had to be _arms_ around his waist, grounding him, pulling him up until only his toes touched the ground.

_Fuck—what the fuck._

“ _Ryan._ ”

The voice was unmistakable.

Ryan couldn’t talk through the horror lodged in his throat, his eyes squeezing shut because if he didn’t see, if he didn’t look, then it wasn’t _real_ —

“ _How nice of you to run straight into my arms.”_

A shudder rippled through him when the arms tightened, when breathing became more difficult. Between his all-encompassing fear and the monster’s soul crushing grip, Ryan wondered if he might pass out.

“W-what the fuck are you?” Ryan choked out, his arms shaking so bad that he wondered if his _bones_ were rattling inside him.

“Open your eyes.”

With his heart in his throat, Ryan did, not knowing what to expect, if looking directly at the monster would result in sudden death—

“Oh.”

It wasn’t a monster, a creature with massive teeth in a too wide mouth. It wasn’t a creature with snakes in its hair, vibrant red eyes and a callous grin that could stun him with just a brief brush of eye-contact.

 It was—

“Shane?”

The name made his lips curve strangely, his tongue buzz in equal parts disbelief and terror because, well—

Shane was _dead_.

Had been dead for years now, disappearing _years_ after Rebecca had, irrespective of the fact that neither of them had ever met, that Shane had been a friend he’d met at his shitty internship in Chicago several summers ago.

An easy smile broke over Shane’s face, and _god, it was exactly like how Shane used to smile, with his eyes crinkling at the corners with mirth, a hint of teeth between dry lips._

“The one and only.”

Ryan couldn’t believe it. This is-wasn’t, _fuck_. Ryan’s thoughts were a fucking messing.

“Bullshit.”

Shane broke into laughter, and Ryan cringed, the grinding sound was gone, replaced by the familiar wheeze he had come to appreciate during lunch after a hellish Monday morning at his internship.

“Little guy, it’s _me.”_

_Little guy. Little guy. Little guy. Little guy._

The words echoed in his brain, short-circuited his thoughts because there was only one person—no, one _friend_ —who’d call him that. No one dared, well, no one tried to give him that moniker. Ryan wasn’t short by any means. He was average height, muscular and fit in all the right places. He could bench 200 pounds around a good day, and maybe more if he pushed harder—

“I’ve been waiting for you for so _long,_ ” Shane breathed, crushing Ryan closer, squeezing him within his arms until Ryan thought his bones might splinter, might cave in on themselves. “You don’t know how lonely it gets here, Ry. It’s so fucking _quiet_ , I’m so trapped in my own head that I can’t get out, I’m fucking choking—”

“Shane, why did you—what _happened_?” The words burst out of him like water spilling from the rim of a mug. He couldn’t stop them, hands gripping Shane’s shoulders, touching along familiar, _warm_ , arms to be sure that what he was seeing was real. Shane had gone without a trace, had left before Ryan could—

_Tell him you cared? Tell him that he was more than just a friend?_

Fuck if Ryan knew what he was going to say, of how he could get the words to come out of his trembling lip when Shane was looking at him with something he couldn’t identify in his gaze. It was sweet and fond and, heart wrenching.

Ryan’s brain ceased functioning all together, especially when Shane’s face leaned in, his forehead pressed against his.

Warmth spread through him at the contact, at the familiar smell of pine and old cologne Shane liked to wear.

“Well,” Shane said, his breaths fanning along Ryan’s cheeks. “I died.”

There was a moment wrapped in an eternity where neither of them spoke, where Ryan didn’t understand what Shane had just said because that was just _stupid_. Shane couldn’t be dead, not when he was right in front of him, and—and—so solid and _real_.

“No, you’re _not_ dead,” Ryan denied, his arms sliding over Shane’s shoulder to squeeze, to take in the warmth seeping through his fingers. Shane was alive, and breathing, and nothing the big guy said could change this fact.

“Ryan, you don’t get it do you?” Something sad flashed over Shane’s features, an image that had haunted Ryan’s imagination for months after Shane had dropped off the face of the earth. It was the same expression Shane had worn on his missing photos, the same face Ryan had been forced to look at every day.

 _“_ The dare, this forest, the monster…me. _”_

 _No_ , Ryan thought. He didn’t understand.

“None of it is real. _”_

A nervous laugh bubbled from Ryan’s throat. Of course, this was real. This couldn’t be something his mind just made up. This was Shane, he had to be pulling his leg, had to be trying to poke him for laughs—

Then Shane’s eyes flashed red, and Ryan’s heart stopped, his laughter died in his throat, watching in fascinated horror as smooth white skin purpled, darkened, scales scattered over his flesh. Flat teeth became fangs, sharp and long, the kind that could tear through flesh like a hot blade to butter, easily disemboweling someone if used that way.

But what struck Ryan most, what made a sob erupt from his mouth, compel him to move, to _struggle_ in Shane’s arms were the cat-like slits that replaced the normal round shape of Shane’s pupils, that erased all vestiges of humanity, of _Shane, Shane, Shane_. There was nothing familiar about the face staring back at him, nothing Ryan could piece together in his frazzled brain.

“I’m still as dead as a doornail.”

“ _No!”_ Ryan denied, vehement, voice cracking. He was squeezing Shane’s shoulders until his fingers ached, until he was certain he’d leave marks on that skin—if it was even possible when it was scaled, and black, and—

_Oh god._

“It’s okay, little guy.”

Tears were spilling from his eyes, his grief so powerful that he stopped struggling, stopped moving, exhausted with trying to squirm out of Shane’s hold because Ryan was sure, more than ever, that if it wasn’t for Shane’s grasp, he’d be on the ground. His knees were practically jelly right now.

“By the end of this, you won’t remember me anyway.”

* * *

 

When Ryan opened his eyes it was to the bright Southern California sun filtering through his bedroom. It stung, burned his retinas to be smacked so early in the morning with its radiance.

A groan tumbled from his throat, his body sore in places he didn’t remember _could_ be sore. It’d been ages since he’d worked out this hard, since he’d pushed himself beyond his breaking point, stretched his wings at the gym. It was like he’d been running for miles and this moment, his back pressed into his mattress and his head against the pillow, was the first he’d had to relax.

And maybe it was. Maybe this was the first chance he’d had since he’d started work at Buzzfeed, moved on from his grueling work as an intern to a position where he’d have more independence.

Ryan pressed his hand to his face, to rub the exhaustion from his face, to block some of the sun in his face, and froze. There were wet streaks on his cheeks, sticky and—

_Tears? Had he been crying?_

Ryan’s lips pursed in thought, trying to will back the memories of the previous night, but he was coming up short. His memories of his night were a nebulous black, thick and impenetrable, like an alley of darkness that refused to fade.

This nagged at him for some reason because he was _sure_ he hadn’t drunk last night. In fact, he was sure he’d been stone cold sober for most of the previous week, trying to get in the good graces of his fellow co-workers before he started on his new big project—one he’d held closely to his heart for some time.

 _Buzzfeed Unsolved_ was his baby, his pride and joy. He’d been dreaming of this day, of the moment he could get it off the ground.

It was only fair that he’d honor those who had died under mysterious circumstances, and those who had—a twinge shot through him, one he ignored because _why was he feeling sad suddenly_ —disappeared, without a trace.

After moments of trying to remember _something_ , Ryan finally gave up. Guess it wasn’t too important if his mind had blocked it all out. No point in fighting it then, not when—

Ryan, with tired and unfocused eyes, turned to his electronic clock by his nightstand, and shot up. _Oh fuck_.

He was late. How had he _slept in_?

It was fifteen minutes past 8:30 in the morning and that was _not_ how he wanted to start his first day.

So, Ryan was on his feet, all thoughts of his night and the strange hollow feeling in his chest, swept away by the excitement of the day.


End file.
